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Opening Keynote At GDC 2005 34

Posted by Zonk from the sorry-i-missed-it-raph dept.
RobotWisdom writes "Alice of the Wonderland weblog has managed to transcribe and post the opening keynote address by Raph Koster from the Game Developers' Conference. It was based on his book, 'A Theory of Fun'. My favorite quotes: 'Fun is the feedback the brain gives while successfully absorbing a pattern.' and 'The differences between Cheers, Friends, and a medieval morality play are NOT THAT BIG.' Very upbeat, thought-provoking and inspiring." As an FYI: I'll be leaving for the sunny western coast in less than 8 hours. Expect coverage all week starting as soon as I get over jet lag tomorrow.
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Opening Keynote At GDC 2005 More

Opening Keynote At GDC 2005

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  • Review of his book (Score:4, Informative)

    by Orbruelor ( 863009 ) on Tuesday March 08, 2005 @12:24AM (#11874261)

    Slashdot recently reviewed his book, and after reading the excerpt in TFA, I'm even more interested in checking his book out.

    Review here [slashdot.org]

    What he said definitely rings true with me. I enjoy playing games, but once I can read the patterns, it becomes monkey work to implement them - hence not fun. Similarly I find the same is true at work. I enjoy work that involves problem solving or analysis, however if the patterns seem too easy - I see it as monkey work and am turned off.

    Main point I took away: Fun lies between too easy and too hard, at the point where you "get" the patterns.

    • Would it mean that the key to have fun is to be mentally disabled (it makes sense to me.)?

      Thus, a mentally disabled person could forever perform a simple pattern, like throwing a ball or watching a flock of bird take off, without ever understanding it, and having fun every time?

      Ignorance is bliss.

      I was about to write something about EQ players, but I will sure be modded as Troll :)

  • Not the Keynote to GDC (Score:5, Informative)

    by VonGuard ( 39260 ) on Tuesday March 08, 2005 @12:44AM (#11874363) Homepage Journal
    Raph Koster was not the keynote speaker for the Game Developers Conference, as this story states. Raph Koster was the keynote speaker for the Serious Games Summit, a smaller event that takes place at the GDC. The real keynote speakers will be talking later this week, and are from Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. Sony consoles, that is, not Sony online, like Raph.

  • Gaming's future (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MrWa ( 144753 ) on Tuesday March 08, 2005 @01:17AM (#11874564) Homepage
    Koster is known for two things: Ultima Online and SWG. Now, which one of those games is fun? When it came out UO was revolutionary and, ignoring the few people that remember Meridian 59, launch the graphical MMORPG or whatever the current "in" abbreviation is nowadays.

    The real question, now, is who can be trusted to make fun games that are not work (i.e. EQ). Is there any game designer or publisher willing to put out a truly innovative and fun game, something that doesn't rehash the same basic game design points that we have been playing the past 6 years? FPS frag-a-thons with improved graphics, MMORPG's better graphics and more delivery quests, RTS clickfests, turn-based strategy games...nothing new has come out in a long time that was also fun.

    On Marketplace today they discussed the GDC and the growing interest of Hollywood. With the growing dominance of EA and the interest of Hollywood, are we looking at the beginning of the decline (so far as quality, innovation, and "fun" are concerned) and the introduction of a new phase of "gaming" as pre-packaged entertainment for the masses?

    Does anyone else fear that when gaming no longer has the "I'm MrWa. I'm a gamer" connotation and becomes mainstream that the development stage - and the fun with it - has ended?

    • nothing new and fun? ummmmm, Katamari Damacy?
      • nothing new and fun? ummmmm, Katamari Damacy?

        Sounds like Daikatana to me... :)
      • I also had a lot of fun with Gish, which was pretty out there.

        And stay tuned for Psychonauts, when we finally push that bad boy out the door. :)
        • Darwinia [darwinia.co.uk] is pretty cool [eurogamer.net] - in a unashamedly retro-gameplay kind of way. Kind of Cannon Fodder meets Tron, with a liberal helping of Space Invaders along the way.

          I had great fun playing the demo last night, but I can't decide whether to get the full game or not. The demo seemed a bit glitchy, and it felt more like an incredibly polished, atmospheric shareware game than a 30-quid one. Still, it really reminded me of when I first discovered computers, where the bugs in games could be overlooked thanks to the s
      • Hehe, is that the (PS2?) game where everything in your surroundings stick on you ? Ifso, defenitely looked like a lot of fun ; Haven't come around to play it yet.

        On another note ; I find the Wario Ware inc. games also very 'new' amd 'fun'.

    • How about Katamai Da... er... Dama... er... y'know? That Japanese thing.

    • Re:Gaming's future (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Scarblac ( 122480 )

      mmoarrrrpg [puzzlepirates.com]

      Everything is done by puzzles (e.g., advanced tetris-style games). A ship sails because the navigator plays the Navigation puzzle, using movement points created by people playing the Sailing puzzle, in ship vs ship battle people play the Gunnery puzzles to load guns, ships can grapple after which everyone fights each other hand to hand in Swordfighting puzzle games. That's different from yet another graphical MUD!

    • Does anyone else fear that when gaming no longer has the "I'm MrWa. I'm a gamer" connotation and becomes mainstream that the development stage - and the fun with it - has ended?

      Not really, no.

      I mean, we've had books for--how many centuries, now? We burn through entire forests printing drivel that should never have been scrawled to a page in the first place, yet we still have brilliant authors producing everything from fun, entertaining stories to landmark works of literature.

      One can argue that games re

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Gaming's future (Score:3, Interesting)

      by servognome ( 738846 )
      With the growing dominance of EA and the interest of Hollywood, are we looking at the beginning of the decline (so far as quality, innovation, and "fun" are concerned)
      I don't think there is a decline in any of those aspects. "Fun" is different for different people, the introduction of new segments of society to gaming have also changed the kind of games being played.
      Madden football is definately "fun", but the reasons are different than what traditional gamers like. Madden football is more of a social e
  • I would argue that fun is the positive feedback that your brain recieves after successfully predicting a pattern. How many times do you hear people say, about card games, for instance, "It was fun once I got the hang of it."
  • Jessica from Biting the Hand Fame (now a Turbine executive) and Raph Koster are two people's whose writing I enjoy a lot. However once they get on the other side of the system; managing, designing, and implementing the games; they just to seem to lose track of what they espoused earlier.

    UO was very amazing when it came out. It was also very buggy and had some serious lag issues. Jokes of "step, step... lag... lag... lag" were common. Rollbacks and server downtimes were considered common events. Yet ha
    • Ah, but then you have MMOs like EVE Online [eve-online.com], a game that is virtually "path-less". PVP is there, but it's there as a reality of venturing into unregulated space. You don't HAVE to participate in PVP, you can stay in relatively comfy empire space and pursue a research career, manufacturing, etc. There's no singular path defined for a character at all. Sure you can put more skill into science rather than combat skills, but that doesn't mean you can't fight.

      Essentially what we have here is a virtual sand
    • I don't think there really were AI lobotomies in Civ or MOO multiplayer, just that humans tend to gang up on AI characters. Having a truly trustworthy ally at your back can seriously turn the tide of a game like that. Then again, that's what many of these strategy games lack - dependable allies. With a person, if I need to leave a city undefended for a turn, I can usually trust them - with an AI, that city is gone as soon as I leave it and I'm at war with my former "friend." The hardest game of MOO2 I e

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